Dragontiarna

by Jonathan Moeller

  “As you command, Warlord,” said Milchikai, and he turned and gave orders.

  Trumpet blasts rang out and drums boomed, and tearing metallic cries echoed over the Heptarchy fleet.

  The fire drakes rose from their transport ships and flew overhead.

  A variety of different drakes lived in the lands of the Heptarchy, each sort suited to its environment, whether desert or swamp or forest. But the mountain drakes were by far the most dangerous. They could grow even larger than a wyvern, capable of breathing a flame that would kill a man in an instant…if he was fortunate. A fully grown mountain drake could carry a pony in its talons or bear the weight of a rider.

  The priestesses of the Temple of the Visionary had seen the drakes’ potential as weapons of war. Repeated experiments had failed (sometimes spectacularly) to domesticate the creatures, but they could be tamed with the aid of magical restraint.

  Now nineteen fire drakes soared towards Cintarra, their wings extended. The mountain drakes of the Heptarchy were either blood-colored or had bronze-colored scales, some of the creatures having a mix of the two. A row of spines ran down their serpentine necks and tails and backs. The riders sat between two of the spikes, Chosen Guards who had received training to use the enspelled harnesses that governed the creatures’ minds.

  Though the fire drakes had strong minds, and sometimes their wills overrode the spells upon the harnesses. When that happened, the drake went berserk, trying to kill its rider and burn everything in sight.

  Which might go all the further to distract the enemy.

  “Master of Engineers,” said Agravhask, watching the drakes swoop over the harbor of Cintarra. “Are the bombards ready?”

  Milchikai rubbed his hands together in anticipation before he caught himself. Mayascora gave him a sour look. “Yes, Warlord.” He gestured to the right and to the left.

  “The vessels with the bombards have moved into position. We will soon be within range of the city.”

  “Final instructions for their crews,” said Agravhask, sweeping his spyglass over the harbor once more. He saw soldiers rushing to defend the barricades, while archers hurried to the rooftops of the harbor warehouses. Whoever commanded Cintarra’s defense was diligent, at least. “Target the harbor area, specifically the district past the quays. The barricades would be ideal. One volley only.” Milchikai bowed and turned to convey the orders. Agravhask turned his gaze to one of his arachar commanders. “Commence the landing. The bombards will fire once the first of the landing boats have entered the harbor. Our men ought to be out of the blast radius, and the bombards will throw the defense into disarray.”

  The soldiers hurried to carry out the commands of their Warlord.

  “Well, Warlord,” said Mayascora. “We shall see if all your fine plans come to fruition.”

  Agravhask kept himself from smiling, though his left hand did stroke Shieldruin’s pommel. Mayascora did not understand and nor was she capable of understanding. To her, war was simply a matter of marching soldiers to and fro and shouting at them.

  Nor would she have been capable of understanding Agravhask’s true purpose. She was too much like the urdmordar who had birthed her, a creature of lust and hunger and power. The idea that the chaos of the cosmos had to be repaired and brought to order…such a notion would have never entered her seething mind, and if he had explained it to her, she would have tried to kill him as a blasphemer against the Seven Goddesses.

  Perhaps when Agravhask and the other Heralds of Ruin strode through the ashes of Cathair Kaldran and opened the door that must never be opened…perhaps then, at the end, Mayascora would understand.

  Though most likely, she would be long dead by then.

  Agravhask turned his attention back to Cintarra and watched the first of the longboats row away from the transports and the warships. Shieldruin stirred in its scabbard, the dark soulblade whispering of death and destruction in his mind.

  Yes. Soon there would be killing enough to sate even a dark soulblade.

  ###

  Niall had spent a tense morning with Archbishop Caelmark, Sir Rufinius, and the decurions of the militia atop the eastern wall.

  They had watched the armies maneuvering, the host of Andomhaim marching to confront the Heptarchy invaders. Niall felt like a coward standing atop the ramparts and watching other men rush to battle. He knew that Lord Ridmark had commanded him to remain here to help Archbishop Caelmark defend the city if necessary. But nonetheless, Niall felt he should have been at Lord Ridmark’s side, that he ought to have helped the Shield Knight face the arachar orcs.

  Then bells began to ring in Cintarra.

  Niall’s first thought was that the city’s churches were calling worshippers to afternoon services. But only the churches near the harbor were ringing their bells, over and over again. And that meant…

  “The enemy,” said Rufinius. “They have been sighted in the harbor.”

  “Come,” said Caelmark, his voice grim. The archbishop wore unadorned plate mail, stark and severe as his expression, his mace ready in a loop on his belt, and a shield slung over his back. “We must prepare to face the foe.”

  They rushed from the eastern gate and to their waiting horses, Caelmark giving commands the entire way. Several of the decurions galloped off to the various militia barracks, rousing the men to war. Caelmark, Rufinius, Niall, and the others mounted their horses, riding through the streets. They hurried past the proud domi of the merchants and lords of Cintarra, the towers of the Prince’s Palace rising before them.

  Then Niall heard the screaming.

  It came from several places throughout the city. It almost sounded like there was fighting underway already within the walls. But that was impossible. The walls were too well-guarded, and there was no way the enemy could have passed them unseen. Nor had the gates been breached. Had the foe crept in through the Shadow Ways?

  “I hear the cry for fire,” said Rufinius.

  Caelmark growled in annoyance. “That would be just our ill fortune. Some fool drops his lantern when the city is under attack, and…”

  The fire drake swooped into sight overhead a second later.

  Niall’s first thought was that it was a dragon, that Merovech Valdraxis himself had come to burn the city, or more dragons had come through the rifts to attack Andomhaim. But the creature was too small to be a dragon, and it looked sleeker and less bulky than the dragons of the Frankish Empire. For that matter, the creature had a saddle and a peculiar metal harness around its head and neck, almost like a helmet and a collar. An arachar orc in crimson armor sat in the saddle, guiding the beast, and it dove towards them, its mouth yawning wide, red fire dancing behind its fangs…

  The creature might not have been a dragon, but Niall had seen this before.

  “Scatter!” he shouted, leaping from the saddle and throwing himself against the wall of a nearby domus.

  He missed death by about a second. A plume of flames swept from the dragon’s jaws and roared up the street. The heat of it seared his skin, but he had gotten far enough away that he suffered no injury from the drake’s flames. The same could not be said of his horse. The poor animal screamed as he had never before heard a horse shriek, not even in war. The animal blazed like a torch, and then collapsed motionless to the ground, the greasy stench of burned flesh and hair flooding Niall’s nostrils. He scrambled to his feet as the drake passed overhead, another plume of flame shooting from the creature’s jaws.

  Niall looked around, dazed. Five of the militiamen were dead. Niall supposed it was a mercy that the flames had killed them outright rather than leaving alive in agonizing pain. Caelmark and Rufinius were still alive and unharmed.

  “What the devil was that?” said one of the militiamen.

  “Fire drake,” said Caelmark, climbing back into his saddle. “They live in the Wilderland, but they are usually the size of large dogs. The Heptarchy must have larger ones.” He looked at the burned men and made the sign of the cross. “God rest their so
uls. The funeral rites must wait. Come! Sir Niall, take that horse.”

  One of the men had jumped from his horse, which had resulted in his death, but the horse had survived. Niall felt bad taking a dead man’s horse, but he scrambled into the saddle and followed the archbishop as he galloped through the streets. Niall saw plumes of fire in the distance as the fire drakes circled over the city. God and the saints, the creatures might burn down all of Cintarra.

  They raced into the forum before the Prince’s Palace along with several hundred militiamen under their decurions. Caelmark reined up in the center of the street and gave several rapid orders. Some of the men he sent to use the portable ballistae that Prince Jager had provided to the city, dispatching them to shoot down the fire drakes. Meanwhile, Caelmark dispatched the rest of the soldiers to the quays to man the barricades there. The archbishop dismounted and strode forward, mace in hand. Horses would be useless in the tight streets of the dockside quarters.

  “Sir Rufinius! Sir Niall!”

  The voice was metallic, distorted, but Niall recognized it nonetheless.

  Niall turned his head and saw Moriah hurrying towards them.

  Or the Wraith. She had donned her scout armor and wraithcloak, her face concealed behind the masked helmet.

  Some of the militiamen reached for their swords.

  “God and the apostles, that’s the Wraith!” said one of the militiamen. “Isn’t there a bounty on his head?”

  “The enemy comes for us,” said Caelmark in a tone of absolute command, “and we shall need every man able to lift a sword.”

  No one tried to collect the bounty. Though given that Cyprian and all the leaders of the Scepter Bank were dead, Niall supposed there was no one left to pay a bounty on the Wraith. Plus, anyone who tried to attack Moriah would regret it.

  They left the Prince’s Palace and came to the dockside district. Barricades had been raised across the ends of the streets, blocking access to the harbor quays. Militiamen rushed to hold the barricades, along with men-at-arms and knights from the church’s benefices throughout the River Cintarra valley. Archers and crossbowmen crowded the rooftops of the warehouses behind the quays, their weapons ready. It was a strong force of defenders, and better prepared than the one that had held against the first Heptarchy attack.

  But many, many more ships were on their way.

  Niall froze in surprise as he saw the vast armada outside the harbor.

  Hundreds of Heptarchy warships and transport ships floated to the south, out of range of any engines or bows in the city. Hundreds of longships rowed into the harbor, each one holding dozens of armored arachar orcs.

  It was an immense force, many times larger than the one that had assailed Cintarra a few weeks ago. Prince Accolon had won that fight, but Niall feared the outcome might be different this time.

  “God and the saints,” he heard Moriah murmur behind her mask.

  “We will need assistance, Father,” Rufinius said to the archbishop. “We cannot hold against such a throng without aid.”

  “We will hold long enough,” said Caelmark. “The clamor of the bells will be heard outside of the city. The High King will send reinforcements once he realizes that we are under attack. He may even come himself.”

  Niall had no doubt that reinforcements would come.

  He hoped they would be enough.

  ###

  Agravhask watched the longboats enter the harbor. The men of Andomhaim had responded with remarkable speed, preparing to defend the quays and the harbor district from the invasion. There were only so many streets leading from the harbor, and the defenders had barricaded them all. Agravhask’s forces had numerical superiority, but forcing the streets would be a bloodbath, and the defenders would hold long enough for reinforcements to arrive from outside the city. Even with the fire drakes spreading chaos behind the defenders’ lines, the men of Andomhaim would still hold for too long.

  Unless something changed.

  “Master of Engineers,” said Agravhask. “Are the bombards ready to fire?”

  “These precious bombards you insisted we drag across the great ocean,” said Mayascora. “We might have been better served by horsemen.”

  Milchikai gave her a wary look and then turned his attention to Agravhask. “They are ready, Warlord.”

  “We shall put the matter to the test, High Priestess,” said Agravhask. “The bombards will fire when ready.”

  Milchikai shouted instructions, and drums boomed.

  Agravhask turned his head to look at one of the warships alongside the flagship. A massive engine had been dragged onto the deck, something different from a catapult or a ballista. It looked like a thick tube of black metal, an apparatus of pipes and boilers at one end. The engineers had loaded a metal canister into the far end of the tube.

  The machine looked ridiculous, like something created by a blacksmith with delusions. But the appearance of things was so often deceptive. Agravhask was neither a wizard nor an alchemist nor a natural philosopher, but he understood how the bombards worked. An alchemical powder devised by the Visionary was loaded into one end of the device. When ignited, the powder exploded, and the device focused the blast into the tube, which hurled the canister at the target.

  At least that was the theory. In practice, the alchemical powder used to power the machine, and the even more potent elixir loaded into the canisters, was both hideously expensive to prepare and dangerously unstable. Even the wealth of the Seven Temples, already strained to prepare the invasion force, had only been able to produce ten bombards and enough canisters to allow each to fire two or three times. Additionally, the devices had a regrettable habit of exploding. The tiniest flaw in the preparing of any of the parts and the bombard would ignite itself an explosion that would kill anyone nearby.

  That was why the flagship carried no bombards.

  But Agravhask only needed to fire the bombards once.

  He waited. Nothing happened.

  “A waste of time and money,” said Mayascora. “We should have brought horses instead.”

  “Your forgiveness, priestess,” said Milchikai, “but the firing procedure can take…”

  Thunder filled the world. Agravhask was expecting it, so he did not flinch, but the priestesses jerked and clapped their hands to their ears. Milchikai clapped in delight, his stoic demeanor dissolving in delighted triumph.

  All ten bombards fired simultaneously, plumes of white smoke erupting from the tubes. Two of the bombards misfired, and the resultant explosions ripped apart their host warships, the vessels and their crews dissolving in crimson fire. But eight canisters soared through the air, whistling as they flew, and landed amid the defenders’ barricades.

  More thunder rang out as the canisters exploded in enormous blood-colored fireballs. Entire buildings were ripped apart, sprays of brick and slain men tumbling through the air. The explosions ripped eight wide craters into the streets of the dockside district, destroying dozens of buildings and collapsing dozens more in the blast wave.

  And utterly ruining the defensive lines.

  The silence as the echoes of the explosions faded away seemed almost shocking by comparison.

  “By the fury of the Crimson,” whispered Mayascora, gaping at the destruction. Her jaw hung open, and all eight of her eyes had opened and glowed green in her shock.

  “I believe, High Priestess,” said Agravhask, “it may have been worth the effort to bring the bombards with us.” He turned to the Chosen Guards that waited respectfully behind them. “Come, prepare our boat. We are leaving.”

  Mayascora blinked all eight of her eyes, six of them remaining closed as she regained her self-control. “You…you are going ashore?”

  “I am the Warlord of the Heptarchy,” said Agravhask. “It is my duty to lead our warriors in battle.” He touched the hilt of Shieldruin. “Our strategies have been laid. The dice have been cast. Now it is simply time to kill.”

  He was amused to see the brief flicker of fear go over Maya
scora’s expression before she mastered herself.

  ###

  Caelmark was giving orders, and two of the Heptarchy warships exploded.

  It happened so fast that Niall’s brain refused to make sense of it. One moment the two ships were there. The next they were gone, vanished into crimson fireballs. What the hell had just happened? Perhaps they had been carrying oil from catapults, but oil did not burn with that peculiar red flame.

  Plumes of white smoke erupted from eight other ships.

  “What is that whistling noise?” said Caelmark, looking at the sky.

  Niall opened his mouth to answer.

  The world filled with crimson light and thunder.

  The next thing Niall knew, he was lying on his back. A peculiar smell filled his nostrils, almost like the air after a lightning strike. Mixed with that was the odor of rock dust, burned flesh, and blood. He heard someone screaming. That was odd. He ought to wake up and look around. Ebor was a small village, and its freeholders looked out for each other…

  No. Niall wasn’t in Ebor.

  “Sir Niall!”

  Niall’s eyes snapped open.

  He was lying on his back atop a pile of broken bricks. Plumes of smoke rose into the blue sky overhead. Sir Rufinius knelt above him, his face streaked with dust and sweat, more blood dripping from a cut along his right temple.

  “Can you hear me?” said Rufinius.

  “I…” started Niall.

  Then his mind snapped back into focus, and he sat up with a cry of alarm.

  A scene of devastation greeted him.

  Half the dockside district of Cintarra lay in ruins. Dozens of buildings, warehouses and taverns both, had been smashed to bits, and others were crumbling, fires burning in their interior. Dead men lay everywhere. Heptarchy longboats filled the harbor, and even as Niall looked, some of them reached the quays and scrambled ashore.